AI is not just a feature, it's a new fabric for creation; AI puts CIOs in the spotlight; is Microsoft outsourcing its AI strategy? AI startups relocate teams from China

The war for AI talent is heating up; AI is eating the world; the UK might see its first AI MP; the US vs rest of world battle for AI supremacy; Apple Intelligence takes center stage at WWDC

For years, Apple has perfected the art of making technology accessible to the point of it becoming invisible—if you’re using an iPhone or a Mac, everything just works. They offered a similar vision for AI at WWDC this week, showing how Apple Intelligence will improve apps and OS features in small yet meaningful ways.

Or, to quote The Information’s Jessica Lessin:

Digesting the Apple news, I think this may go down as the day that the world realizes AI isn’t a whole new class of product. It is an amazing leap forward in features that can be powerfully unlocked by companies with the right kind of structured data. What do you think?

While I understand why Mrs Lessin or Wired’s Will Knight would think this way, I argue that AI is not merely a new feature or product: it will rapidly become a fundamental new fabric for creation, just as the internet or cloud computing.

We shouldn’t judge AI by what we see today: features layered onto existing products and services. Instead, we should treat large language models, computer vision, generative AI and other capabilities as stops on a journey to a central platform on which we will build something entirely new.

Just as we shifted from building PC software to cloud-native apps, or went from building websites to creating mobile apps, we're now entering an AI-native era. AI won't be an incremental feature, but the core fabric for building tailored experiences, products and platforms across every domain.

For companies and developers, this means fundamentally rethinking their approach. You can't just sprinkle some AI onto an existing offering. You need to rebuild from the ground up with an AI platform in mind. This AI shift will be as dramatic as past platform transitions, requiring new skills, new architectures, and new business models.

Those who recognize AI as a core platform for building rather than just as a hyped feature will be the ones to define the next era of innovation.

And now, here are this week’s news:

❤️Computer loves

Our top news picks for the week - your essential reading from the world of AI

• Fortune: How Amazon blew Alexa’s shot to dominate AI, according to more than a dozen employees who worked on it

• The Guardian: Apple debuts new ‘Apple Intelligence’ AI features at WWDC 2024

  • TechCrunch: Why Apple is taking a small-model approach to generative AI

  • MIT Technology Review: Apple is promising personalized AI in a private cloud. Here’s how that will work.

  • Fortune: Apple’s big AI announcements were all about AI ‘for the rest of us’—Google, Meta, Amazon and, yes, OpenAI should take note

  • FT: Apple partners with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to its devices in AI push

  • WSJ: Apple Intelligence: A Guide to Apple’s AI-In-Everything Strategy 

  • The Verge: ‘Apple Intelligence’ will automatically choose between on-device and cloud-powered AI

  • TechCrunch: Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 or newer chips

  • Reuters: Apple to use its own server chips for AI features

  • The Verge: Apple’s AI opportunity is all about the big picture

  • Wired: Apple Intelligence Will Infuse the iPhone With Generative AI

  • The Verge: Apple is giving Siri an AI upgrade in iOS 18

  • Bloomberg: Elon Musk to Ban Apple Devices If OpenAI Is Integrated Into OS

  • TechCrunch: Apple debuts AI-generated … Bitmoji

  • FT: Can Apple catch up with its rivals in the AI race?

• The Economist: The war for AI talent is heating up

• Fortune: Adapt or die: Is the future bright for business amidst the AI boom?

• WSJ: AI Puts CIOs in the Spotlight, Right Next to the CEO

• The Atlantic: This Is What It Looks Like When AI Eats the World

• CNBC: Microsoft is outsourcing its best AI, tech CEO says — and that’s good news for Google

• The Guardian: Brighton general election candidate aims to be UK’s first ‘AI MP’

• The Information: How the World Plans to Stop American AI Domination

• Wired: AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children

• The Information: American AI Startups Relocate China-Based Engineers

⚙️Computer does

AI in the wild: how artificial intelligence is used across industry, from the internet, social media, and retail to transportation, healthcare, banking, and more

• Bloomberg: The AI Revolution Comes for Farmers Growing a Third of Our Food

• Reuters: Japan's beloved cats get healthcare help from AI

• Fortune: These AI-enabled recycling robots are helping businesses be more sustainable

• WSJ: Stressing Over Your Next Home Renovation Project? Let AI Handle It.

• The Verge: Ancestry.com is using AI to make a searchable database for Black family trees

• The Verge: Yahoo Mail is adding more AI to simplify desktop email

• MIT Technology Review: What using artificial intelligence to help monitor surgery can teach us

• Business Insider: A cloud-storage company is using AI to save employees weeks of cybersecurity-threat work

• BBC: Phone and seat belt offenders to be targeted by AI

• The Guardian: Groundbreaking AI heart attack scans could soon be rolled out across UK

• Reuters: Morgan Stanley CEO says AI could save financial advisers 10-15 hours a week

• New York Times: Every Elephant Has Its Own Name, Study Suggests

🧑‍🎓Computer learns

Interesting trends and developments from various AI fields, companies and people

• Semafor: Microsoft’s star AI chief peers into OpenAI’s code, highlighting an unusual rivalry

• TechCrunch: Picsart partners with Getty Images to develop a custom AI model

• TechCrunch: Spotify announces an in-house creative agency, tests generative AI voiceover ads

• Business Insider: McKinsey exec tells summer interns that learning to ask AI the right questions is the key to success

• Bloomberg: More AI Founders Looking to Sell Startups, Hugging Face CEO Says

• Press Gazette: ‘Devastating’ potential impact of Google AI Overviews on publisher visibility revealed

• Bloomberg: Apple to ‘Pay’ OpenAI for ChatGPT Through Distribution, Not Cash

• TechCrunch: LinkedIn leans on AI to do the work of job hunting

• TechCrunch: After the Yahoo News app revamp, Yahoo preps AI summaries on homepage, too

• CNBC: Google search head says ‘we won’t always find’ mistakes with AI products and have to take risks rolling them out

• VentureBeat: ‘We don’t need Sora anymore’: Luma’s new AI video generator Dream Machine slammed with traffic after debut

• WSJ: Microsoft’s Nadella Is Building an AI Empire. OpenAI Was Just the First Step.

• Business Insider: Did Apple just outthink everyone in AI? A chat with tech analyst Ben Thompson

• Fortune: Companies crave fresh data to train AI models. This startup’s recipe? Data made from scratch—by AI

• The Economist: A price war breaks out among China’s AI-model builders

• The Guardian: Photographer takes on the machines in AI competition – and wins

• The Atlantic: Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?

• BBC: Dan's the man: Why Chinese women are looking to ChatGPT for love

• Digiday: Lack of training, guidance is significantly slowing AI adoption in the workplace

• Business Insider: A surprising number of people use and like Google's new AI search, analysts find

• Bloomberg: AI Could Transform UK’s Public Finances as Labour Touts Gains

• Bloomberg: Databricks Launches AI Graphics Competitor to Salesforce, Microsoft

• TechCrunch: Generative AI takes robots a step closer to general purpose

• The Information: Google AI Overviews Are ‘Nail in the Coffin’ for Blogs: LTK Founder

• VentureBeat: Databricks Data and AI Summit 2024: The biggest innovations

• Business Insider: Microsoft's focus on monetizing its AI investments is a sign of tech's shifting strategy

• VentureBeat: MLPerf 4.0 training results show up to 80% in AI performance gains

• VentureBeat: Stability AI brings new size to image generation with Stable Diffusion Medium

• Fortune: How ServiceNow is infusing AI everywhere and got 84% of the workforce to use it daily

• VentureBeat: What you need to know about Kling, the AI video generator rival to Sora that’s wowing creators

• FT: Elon Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

• Fortune: OpenAI’s Mira Murati fires back at Elon Musk for describing her company’s new partnership with Apple

• AP: Why Russia, China and Big Tech all use fake female online profiles to get clicks: ‘Pretending to be a female is the easiest way to get credibility’

• Reuters: MediaTek designs Arm-based chip for Microsoft's AI laptops, say sources

• TechCrunch: Spawning wants to build more ethical AI training datasets

• Axios: LinkedIn tests AI assistant for Premium members

• Scientific American: What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment?

• The Verge: Google’s June Pixel update brings Gemini AI to cheaper phones

• Bloomberg: US Weighs More Limits on China’s Access to Chips Needed for AI

• CNBC: OpenAI ex-employees worry about company’s control over their millions of dollars in shares

• Reuters: Brazil hires OpenAI to cut costs of court battles

• The Atlantic: The iPhone Is Now an AI Trojan Horse

• CNBC: AI is getting very popular among students and teachers, very quickly

• The Telegraph: China develops hyper-realistic robots that can replicate emotion

• Business Insider: Microsoft is considering an AI revamp of its 365 software bundles, sources say

• Business Insider: I asked the new ChatGPT to find me a job and was surprised by what it came up with

• Bloomberg: AI Startup Perplexity Says News Summary Tool Has ‘Rough Edges’

• Wired: How Game Theory Can Make AI More Reliable

• Reuters: OpenAI hires former Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as first CFO

• VentureBeat: Harvard, MIT, and Wharton research reveals pitfalls of relying on junior staff for AI training

• Fortune: Ashton Kutcher sides with the enemy over actor and writer colleagues in AI debate: ‘I can just generate and then watch my own movie’

• The Guardian: First NHS physiotherapy clinic run by AI to start this year

• Business Insider: Bain just identified 24 leaders in the white-hot AI space. Here's an exclusive look at the startups that made the cut.

• Fortune: IMF official delivers stark warning on AI’s potential to turn an ordinary downturn into a severe economic crisis

• The Telegraph: Labour to build data centres on green belt

• Business Insider: A researcher fired by OpenAI published a 165-page essay on what to expect from AI in the next decade. We asked GPT-4 to summarize it.

• FT: The Chinese quant fund-turned-AI pioneer

• Business Insider: X is pushing advertisers to use Grok, the sarcastic, not 'woke' AI bot. They're not interested.